Moonlight, a Slavic Culture and Music Festival
Role: Visual & UX/UI Designer
Duration: Jan 2025 - Mar 2025
Tools Utilized: Figma, Adobe Illustrator
Project Type: Human-Centered Design
Background
Project Context
This 10-week project was part of HCDE 308: Visual Communication in Human Centered Design and Engineering. The challenge was to design a complete visual system for a campus festival.
Why Moonlight Festival?
I created the Moonlight Festival, a Slavic culture and music celebration inspired by my own Russian heritage and language background. I wanted the event to be both personal and culturally meaningful.
Core Value
For students seeking community through their Slavic roots, the Moonlight Festival offers a modern celebration of tradition—blending music, art, and cuisine in a vibrant nighttime setting.
What Makes It Unique
Unlike other Slavic festivals, Moonlight takes place entirely at night, with immersive light displays and illuminated grounds. This transforms the experience into something both enchanting and unforgettable.
Initial Research
Research & Inspiration
To ground the Moonlight Festival in authentic cultural traditions, I studied three existing Slavic festivals as references.
Taste of Polonia
One of the largest Slavic festivals in the U.S., Taste of Polonia celebrates Polish and Slavic culture through food, music, and entertainment across four days.
Washington Ukrainian Festival
A local annual event held each September, this festival offered a regional comparison to the larger Taste of Polonia.
Sugar Creek Slavic Festival
Running since 1984, Sugar Creek has become a long-standing cultural institution, attracting thousands each year. It provided key insights into audience engagement and festival longevity.
Taste of Polonia is one of the largest Polish festivals in the U.S., attracting 40,000–60,000 attendees with authentic food, music, and entertainment since 1980. Welcoming all cultures it features a packed lineup of musical artists, 35+ vendors, and theatre showings.
The Washington Ukrainian Festival is a 3-day Slavic event drawing over 12,000 attendees with a diverse range of activities and Ukrainian exhibits. It offers interactive booths, homemade meals, handcrafted goods, and fundraising for charity. Since 2002, it has built a strong community tradition celebrating Ukrainian culture.
The Sugar Creek Slavic Festival is a 2-day outdoor event in Sugar Creek, Missouri, drawing thousands of attendees each year with live music, dancing, authentic food, folk art, and cultural experiences. It embraces a broad Slavic identity, creating an inclusive and welcoming atmosphere for all branches of Slavic descent. Its small-town setting fosters a strong sense of community.
PERSONAS
WORDMARK
ITERATIONS
FINAL WORDMARK - The Meaning of “Moonlight”
Moonlight symbolizes the enchanting atmosphere of Slavic culture—brought to life through music, workshops, and art under the evening sky. The late-afternoon-to-night timing makes the festival feel magical and immersive, with lights enhancing the mystery and tradition of Slavic folklore.
Typography Choice
To capture this mood, I selected Russian Land, a sans-serif font that alludes to the Cyrillic alphabet through its terminals. This creates a direct tie to heritage, grounding the festival in its cultural roots.
Why It Works
The font’s bold weight and upright posture reinforce feelings of enchantment and excitement, setting the tone for an event that blends tradition with modern celebration.
LOGOMARK
ITERATIONS
Final Logomark - Logomark Concept
I aimed to capture a sense of mystery, folklore, and wonder in the Moonlight Festival’s visual identity.
Why the Bear?
The bear is a prominent and symbolic figure in Slavic culture, embodying strength and tradition. In the logomark, its silhouette is designed to appear as though it is formed by the reflection of the moon it gazes toward—tying directly to the festival’s name and atmosphere.
Visual Style
The bear is created using varied linework and shapes, echoing the bold weight, sharp edges, and finials found in the wordmark’s typography. Together, the logomark and wordmark form a cohesive system that blends heritage with visual enchantment.
MOODBOARD
Since the festival takes place at night, I drew inspiration from night-themed artwork and chose a black and red palette. Black reflects the night sky, while red symbolizes Slavic tradition.
Atmosphere
The goal was to create a look that feels mysterious, ambient, and immersive—inspired by the red moon and high-contrast poster designs..
COLORS
Iterations
Final Color Palette
I wanted the palette to evoke mystery, heritage, and wonder.
Palette Name - Slavic Moonlit Evening
The palette includes Night Sky, Blood Moon, Starlight, and Zoroya Crimson. Bright red ties to Slavic flags and ensures cultural representation, while black and white provide high contrast for an eerie yet beautiful atmosphere.
Application
Crimson served as an accent color for details in the final poster and app design.
Typography
While my original display font was too ornate for headings, I selected Tac One for headers and Josefin Sans for body text.
Why This Pairing Works
Both fonts share a geometric, sans-serif structure with vertical axes, tall proportions, and similar widths. Their single-story “a” characters also create visual consistency. Together, they provide clear hierarchy while keeping the design cohesive and legible.
POSTER DESIGN
ITERATIONS
Final Poster
Type Hierarchy
I used Tac One for headline events and Josefin Sans for event details and descriptions. The wordmark served as the main focal point, with Header 1 bold + all caps as a strong secondary. Header 2 bold (no caps) created contrast, while event times and locations in Tac One added clarity. Body text in Josefin Sans balanced the system with thinner, capitalized styling.
Map DESIGN
I designed the map to be clear and simple, using my color palette and a distinct labeling system to avoid clutter. To connect it to the festival theme, I added a moon element above the wordmark for a touch of mystery.
SIGNAGE
ITERATIONS
FINAL
I wanted the poster to evoke awe, mystery, and wonder. The moon element reinforces the nighttime theme, while the symbol and wordmark create brand cohesion. Using a black, white, and red palette kept the design bold yet simple. I chose primary signage to allow for large decorative elements with minimal words, making the design intuitive and impactful.
MOBILE APP - USER FLOW |Merchandise purchasing
LOW FIDELITY
USER TESTING
I conducted 4 user tests on my low-fidelity prototype to gather feedback for the next iteration.
Key Takeaways
Flip the close button in the navigation bar for better usability.
Users wanted fully responsive interactions instead of placeholder frames.
Improve the merchandise flow with full functionality.
Show the checkout summary in the cart, not immediately after adding an item.
Next Steps
In my high-fidelity prototype, I plan to implement full responsiveness, refine the merchandise flow, and adjust the checkout summary to appear after personal information is filled out.
UI STYLE TILE
Icon Design
I designed five icons for the mobile app (event schedule, merch, home, tickets, and map) to connect visually with the festival’s logomark and wordmark.
Cultural References
Home icon draws from the Slavic folktale Baba Yaga.
Other icons incorporate Slavic artwork motifs for cultural cohesion and heritage connection.
UI Elements
Primary button → add item to cart
Secondary button → view events
Checkout form → supports purchase flow on checkout screens
High Fidelity Wireframes
High Fidelity PROTOTYPE
After the completion of my high-fidelity wireframes, I developed a fully functional prototype which allows the user to add items to their card and to checkout. I recorded a video of the walkthrough of all of my frames and I have included a link to that demo. I have also included a link to my Figma so that you can check out my design!
Reflection
This project is a great representation of everything that I have learned throughout my time at the University of Washington. I was able to practice modifying typography, designing graphics such as my symbol (the bear) and all of my icons for my UI, assessing and implementing information hierarchy, layout, and color. I also created mood boards, wireframes, high-fidelity prototypes, and incorporated user testing to evaluate the usability of my designs. Lastly, I created a fully functional prototype with the use of collections and variables such as integers, strings, and boolean values.
At the end of the quarter, I was given the opportunity to showcase my design in my HCDE 308 class and it was awesome being able to see everyone else’s work! This has been my favorite project thus far and I can’t wait to keep working on it to improve the user experience in my mobile app! I have included a link to the full case study below which details the full extent of the project.
